The Subway
by DJ Caligula
Summary: COMPLETE! In 1957 New York, Susan's past comes to haunt her and threaten her life. AU. Please read and review thanks!
1. The Subway Platform

Author's Note: This is a bit of a story I'm writing, from the POV of a grown-up Susan, and how her past comes to haunt her in strange ways. It's an A/U, and I'm not trying to write in the style of C.S. Lewis. God knows if he would even approve of it; but something tells me his wife would.  
  
I promise to finish it, but please be patient; it will probably take me a while. Of course, reviews are always appreciated. Enjoy!  
  
***  
  
The Subway  
  
New York, 1957  
  
"There you are, Susan honey. Say, you're all dolled up!" Florence Jenkins, arranged on the settee, crossed her legs and finished with one big swallow her scotch on the rocks. "Gonna paint the town with that Jew boyfriend of yours?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, I was." Quickly and precisely, Susan Pevensie knotted her scarf under her chin, trying to hide her growing fury. "And please don't refer to him as my 'Jew boyfriend'. his name is Alan."  
  
"Yeah. you told me his name was Al. Al Hymie or somethin'." She hiccuped loudly.  
  
"No." She gave her new roommate and fellow secretary a piercing glare. "It's Alan Chaimowitz!"  
  
Florence shrugged and giggled. "Have it your way, honey. I'm sure a classy English dame like you knows how to pick out the best men. Where's he takin' you out tonght? The Stork Club? The El Morocco? How 'bout the Rainbow Room?"  
  
"No." Susan picked up her gloves and shoved her hands into them. "We were thinking of finding some bistro down in Greenwich Village. We were going to meet at Washington Square."  
  
"Gee, that's swell, kid. Sounds so bohemian! Didn't you tell me he's a poet or something?"  
  
"Yes, he had some work published in the Evergreen Review."  
  
"Ooh!" Florence rolled her eyes dramatically, as she flopped down onto the settee. "The Evergreen! He's a real artiste. Gonna listen to some jazz, maybe puff on some reefers maybe."  
  
"Oh, Florence," Susan exclaimed, her precise English accent loud and brittle, "reefers are so outre. I was just going to get smashingly drunk and start dancing on some tables. Maybe Alan can beat on a few bongos for a bit of that wild jungle beat." She picked up her purse, her knuckles turning white under her gloves of caramel leather. "You know those poets and jazzmen. One always hears about the depths of their depravity. Naturally such reputations were not gained from drinking hot milk and winning spelling bees."  
  
Florence sat up, her eyes suddenly wide. "Say! You're joking, aren't you?"  
  
"Maybe I am, Florence, and maybe I'm not." She placed her hand on her hip. "You should know by now that even such a respectable and efficient secretary such as Miss Susan Pevensie might have a dark side that would shock even those jaded scandalmongers at the Daily Mirror. Now, if you will permit me to excuse myself-"  
  
"Jeez, Susie, don't get all nose-in-the-air. It's not that I have anything against Jews, mind you. It's just the parents back in ol' Schenectady would die if I ever considered datin' one." She eyed her, curiously and tipsily. "Wouldn't your parents mind or somethin'?"  
  
"Maybe they would, if they were alive." Somehow, she was able to keep her voice perfectly level.  
  
Florence's mouth dropped. "Ah, Christ, I didn't mean-"  
  
"Please, Florence darling. Have another scotch. It might make you feel better." With that, Susan walked out of the apartment, letting the door slam behind her. She ran down the stairs of their four-story walk-up, fighting back the urge to scream, or wail or sob. For once, she had almost been able to get though the whole hellish holiday season without thinking of her family, her family who had died almost ten years ago, in that railway accident.  
  
She burst out into the cold December air, which felt like an icy balm against her feverish face. Putting her face down, she walked to the nearest subway station, down the dark, grimy stairs, littered with gum wads and cigarette butts. After popping the token in the slot and pushing her way through the turnstile, Susan emerged onto the downtown platform. Wrapping her arms around her, she peered miserably down the pitch-black tunnel. The place was deserted. Even the ticket booth was closed and empty- odd, she supposed, for this time of the night. Shivering, she wondered when the A would arrive.  
  
Despite herself, she thought of her mother and father. She thought of her sister too, her yellow hair in pigtails, and her brothers, the older, dark and serious, and the younger with a face still round with baby fat. Their images, dim as disintegrating film, flickered before her eyes. She swallowed. She was still here- her sweaty hands still sheathed in gloves- her feet, encased in Italian leather pumps with two inch and a half heels, pressing against the concrete. She felt the blood, the bone, the sheer meat of her being existing- the churning of her intestines, the beating of her heart, the breath in her lungs- and they- her loved ones, her blood and kin- were nothing. They had meant everything to her, and now they were nothing. Sometimes, it was hard to believe that they'd ever existed.  
  
Her stare down the tunnel became more fixed. Sometimes, she had fantasies, of flinging herself before an oncoming train. It would be a horrible way to die, of course, with the wheels slicing into her flesh- her limbs severed, her brains splattered- but it would be over so quickly, wouldn't it; and she wouldn't have to worry anymore, this tiresome business of life would be over, and all that would be left to her is sweet, black oblivion.  
  
"Not just oblivion, my Queen."  
  
Susan jumped, and looked around. I must be imagining things, she thought nervously. God, I hate the holidays.  
  
"You are not imagining things, my Queen. I bring you," a papery voice whispered, "glad tidings."  
  
And from behind a concrete pillar stepped a decrepit old tramp, in the most tattered clothing Susan had ever seen. He had tangled white beard and stringy hair half-hidden by a slouch hat, and shoes that flapped open, panting, like the mouths of dogs. His face was wrinkled as old parchment and his nose was thick and bulbous, but his eyes were sharp as blades.  
  
"Your kingdom awaits you," he said.  
  
"My- my kingdom?" Susan froze.  
  
"Yes, my Queen. your kingdom. The one of your youth- the one that you deserted, so long ago."  
  
"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about," she said with the chilly accents normally reserved for bums and would-be wolves who tried to chat her up on subway platforms.  
  
"Oh, I think you do." The old man smiled. "Think back, my Queen. take yourself away from this tedious world. think back when you were young."  
  
Susan gaped- and although her skin crawled in horror- her mind did indeed flicker back on the games that she and her siblings used to play, a long time ago. Games with kings, and queens, and centaurs and mermaids and fauns and cruel Eastern princes. God-like lions and villainous giants; unspeakably ancient cities, harsh deserts, icy northern peaks. Susan used to make maps, because she was clever at things like that, and with colored pencils and paper, she was able to create whole worlds, where forests were marked carefully with green, oceans had beasties springing out the depths, and southern cities had minarets and gates straight out of National Geographic. It had been jolly good fun, for a while, and it had helped pass the time, after they had been relocated to the countryside while London was being bombed by the Nazis.  
  
Susan had loved the game, for a while, and she had been as inventive as anyone in coming up with "adventures," but she tired of it quickly, when the war ended. The men had come home; the enemy had been defeated. She had wanted to dress up, go to dances where they played hot jazz and later go out with men and make out with them in cars. It was at that point that she had drifted apart from her sister- Lucy- who, until then, had been her closest friend in the world. She couldn't understand why her sister was so attached to such a childish, irrelevant thing. One might as well spend all one's waking hours fantasizing about Harvey the Invisible Rabbit. As for herself, she was sick and tired of sitting on swings and dreaming about imaginary kingdoms.  
  
"That was nothing," she snapped. "Childish fancies. Certainly nothing worth considering now."  
  
"That is where you are wrong, Queen Susan. Narnia is not imaginary. It is more real than anything you have ever known."  
  
"Narnia," said Susan frigidly- although she was more afraid than she could ever remember- "is real, in that it is a town in Northern Italy. I picked the name off of a map when all of us were thinking of a name for our own little Cloud-Cuckooland."  
  
"Narnia is real," the strange old man continued, as if she had not spoken. "And you are the Queen. Queen Susan the Gentle. Along with King Peter the Magnificent, King Edmund the Just, and Queen Lucy the Valiant, you shall rule over Narnia- the Real Narnia." The old man's eyes shone with an unearthly light. "You shall live forever."  
  
"But I don't want to live forever-"  
  
"Who would desire to live forever, on this corrupt and evil soil?" the old man asked. He stepped closer to her; and Susan, mesmerized, did not protest. "But- in the Real Narnia- you shall rejoice in the light of goodness forever."  
  
"And ever," she added, unable to help herself.  
  
"Amen," said the old man, as the grinding rumble and blinding white lights of the subway filled the tunnel, he flung himself at her, his hands outstretched, and his fingers bent like claws.  
  
**to be continued** 


	2. Daughter of Eve

Gasping, Susan flung herself away from him at the last second. She teetered on her heels, unable to think of how close she had come, to being pushed off the platform. "You're insane!" she screamed at him, although she could barely hear herself over the deafening metallic screeching of the subway coming to a halt. "Get away from me, or I'll call the police!"  
  
"Daughter of Eve," the old man cried, "I only want to help you. One must die in order to truly live."  
  
Susan didn't respond to that; instead she jumped into the nearest car. There had to be people on it; surely, they would help her, protect her from this maniac...  
  
She stumbled through the car, shaking. When she looked around, the blood drained from her face. It was almost impossible to believe, but the car, like the platform, was empty of people- except for herself, of course. I have to be dreaming, she thought dazedly. God, she had to be. She grasped a pole and clung to it. In dreams, weren't people often dressed or looking different than they did in real life? But when she glimpsed herself in a nearby window, she saw only black hair in carefully styled waves, and a scarlet mouth against a rouged and powdered face. She still looked the same. And she was still wearing her Lilli Ann of Paris coat and the full-skirted amber taffeta frock- Adele Simpson, bought at Saks- that she put on almost an hour ago. It'll be all right, Susan, she told herself, closing her eyes. If she told herself she was dreaming, then she would snap out of it. Of course, it didn't help that everything seemed so real... the pole seemed so real and substantial under her hands... but wasn't that the way it always was in dreams?  
  
But she opened her eyes, she saw the old man standing there. The harsh florescent lights bathed his wrinkled face, casting his deep-set, gimlet- bright eyes into pits of shadow. 


	3. A Higher Law?

"I'm dreaming," she announced, her voice shaking. "You're not real. Go away."  
  
"Oh, but I am real, my Queen. Flesh and bone like you. But this world of dreams that we move in... is not solid. Not like Narnia. The Real Narnia."  
  
"What is this 'Real Narnia' that you keep babbling about?" Susan snapped.  
  
"Ah..." the old man breathed. "So you don't know, then..."  
  
"Know what?"  
  
"Know what happened to Narnia. It ended... the end of the world came. The sun died; the stars fell; the oceans overflowed the land; it became a barren waste. But He-"  
  
"He?" Susan demanded shrilly.  
  
"Yes, He- led the true believers through the door- to the eternal country. The Real Narnia. And when your family died- that was where they were taken."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Yes, my Queen. The train crash, that was so tragic to you, was really a blessing." The old man's eyes rolled heavenwards. "It allowed them to leave the shadow country- and enter the Realm of Truth and Light. It allowed them to enter the Real Narnia."  
  
Susan's eyes narrowed. Her friends had always complimented her on her mild temperament, and her ability to keep her temper in check, even when she was stuck in rush-hour traffic or the boss was trying to grope her. But as she listened to this creature babble on with careless piety about the most horrific incident in her life, she felt a black, livid fury rising within her breast. For a moment, she wished for a large metal pipe, or a baseball bat, to smash his head in. Smash it into a pulp, like a watermelon dropped from the Empire State-  
  
Instead, she stepped closer, and narrowed her eyes to slits.  
  
"How dare you," Susan hissed. "How dare you mention my family." As she thrust a finger into his face, her voice rose several octaves. "You have no idea what I've gone through... none. And you certainly have no right to spout these mealy-mouthed platitudes at me, you deranged son of a bitch!"  
  
"My queen," the old man said, honey-like, soothing, "I know why you are angry. I know why your rage forces you to speak in such ungentle language. But you must understand-"  
  
"I don't have to understand anything. And you," she shouted, feeling herself teetering on the brink of hysteria, "know nothing about me! Nothing!"  
  
"Ah, but I know everything about you, my Queen." He leaned his head towards her, his thin lips, behind the straggly white beard, curling up in a ghastly smile. "Everything-"  
  
Susan began to edge towards the exit door that led to another car. "I told you." She held a gloved hand up in front of her. "Stay away from me!"  
  
"Much as it would please me to follow your command, lady, I regret I cannot. I must," he intoned, as sonorous as a priest at church, "follow a higher law."  
  
"Well, so do I!" Susan gasped, and pulled the door open. Self- preservation certainly counted as a higher law, she thought dizzily as she groped her way across the swinging metal bridge that connected the two subway cars. She pushed the door of the other car open, and ran across the inevitably empty car as if her very life depended on it.  
  
Which it undoubtedly did.  
  
*** 


	4. When She was a Queen

She was at the end of the car when the old man emerged at the other end. "My Queen," he called out plaintively. "My Queen, do you think so little of me?"  
  
"You've given me no reason to think any better," she yelled. "You crazy bastard- you tried to push me in front of the train!"  
  
And as the train lurched suddenly, the wheels shrieking, Susan was flung, helter-skelter, onto the nearest seat. For a moment, her head spun from the shock of it; but when she saw the old man approach her, she scrambled up on her feet. "Stop," she barked, as if she really possessed any authority. "Stop where you are!"  
  
But the ancient continued towards her, relentlessly. "My Queen, do not be afraid."  
  
"Fat chance of that! I warn you, don't come any nearer-"  
  
"My Queen, I love you as my own daughter. I have known you since Cair Paravel."  
  
"What?" Susan stared at him. "What did you say?"  
  
"Cair Paravel." As the old man precisely annunciated the strange, melodious name, Susan felt a twinge of recognition. It was as if she were recalling some misty fragment of memory somewhere. Like something from a dream, or a dream within a dream...  
  
"You remember the name."  
  
"I- I don't know," Susan stammered. "It must have been in a book somewhere. I read all sorts of things when I was little."  
  
"No," said the old man. "You lived there, Daughter of Eve. You were the Queen. You reigned there, with your brothers and sister- wise and good and pure as the dawn."  
  
Susan only gaped at him, rather like a deer that had run in front of Alan's Packard when they had vacationed up in the Catskills last summer. "I saw you," the old man continued dreamily. "At the tournament. The one that was held before you sailed off to Calormen. To be wooed by that dark prince." He paused, and looked away. "I never had seen anything so beautiful in my life," he went on, almost to himself. He closed his eyes, and convulsively clenched his ancient, veined, liverish hands. His voice became thick. "After my brother sent me to that institution- I-"  
  
At that, she sat up, and looked at him sharply. "What institution? Bellevue?"  
  
"Yes," the old man said absently. "That's what they called it..."  
  
He paused, and a gentle smile crossed his face. For a moment he looked almost normal- a whimsical old man feeding the birds in Washington Square Park- instead of some stentorious biblical prophet.  
  
"Herman. Yes, Herman... he was my brother. He thought I spent too much time alone. He never had too high an opinion of my facilities in the first place." He chuckled, tapping his hands absent-mindedly against his bewhiskered chin. "Well, so he sent me to Bellevue. He always liked to take care of the family."  
  
"I'm sorry," Susan whispered. Of course, she scarcely meant it, but she would say anything to placate this maniac. God, what she would do for a policeman... or Alan. Dear, dear Alan. As her grip on her purse tightened, his pale face with his untrimmed brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses flickered in her mind. She would never take him for granted again. She would go to his poetry reading- she would stop complaining about his deadbeat bohemian friends- she would even go to San Francisco with him- she would do anything, just as long as she could see him once more...  
  
"Yes, yes. It was horrible. But, you see- in the long run- it was a good thing."  
As hard as she tried, she could not keep a note of incredulity out of her voice. "Was it?"  
  
"Oh yes." He leaned closer. "For," he whispered, "I found Narnia!"  
  
Her voice cracked. "You- you did!"  
  
"Yes." He cackled. "The last place where that nurse would ever dream."  
  
"A wardrobe?" said Susan, before she could stop herself.  
  
"No- close enough though." He rubbed his hands with glee. "A janitor's closet!"  
  
"A janitor's closet!"  
  
"Oh yes, with mops and brooms and bottles of bleach and disinfectant and everything. That's what it was during the day. But during the night-" He paused again, for dramatic effect. "A portal to another world!"  
  
"Really?" said Susan, her voice becoming feeble. "I never would have dreamed-"  
  
"No! No! Who would have? I jumped into it- just to hide from the nurse- and before I knew it- found myself- whisked into an enchanted kingdom!"  
  
He turned away from her, slightly, and stared off into space, transfixed. "With a castle, and centaurs- and fauns- and talking beasts! It was everything I had ever dreamed of. All these great crowds of marvelous creatures were streaming into these stands beneath the castle, to attend a grand tournament. The pennons flew; the trumpets callled; the armor of the knights gleamed. It was like out of a children's book." And he gazed back at her, his eyes shining. Like Miniver Cheevy, thought Susan, suppressing a hysterical laugh.  
  
"Maybe, she said, "because it was out of a children's book."  
  
"No," he said fiercely, "it was real! Real! And no one can tell me otherwise! I saw YOU there, Queen Susan."  
  
"Me?"  
  
"Yes. You were seated upon a throne on a dais, in the center of the grandstands. You were garbed in rose, dark hair falling like a river down your back, and a circlet of gold upon your lily-white brow- reigning like an angel over the assorted throng. I understood their language, you know. I understood the whispering. How you and your fair brother were about to journey south to the country of the swarthy princeling who was fighting so bravely in the lists, against the other knights of your country."  
  
"Rabadash," she murmured, pressing a gloved hand against her suddenly heated face.  
  
"See?" The old man crowed with delight. "You do remember!"  
  
"I don't remember anything," she said, although she felt the whole world swimming in front of her. Rabadash? How could she remember that ridiculous name? She could have made him up, she could have sworn it. But for a moment she could have said he had been as real as her brothers and sister; if she closed her eyes, she could see that ruthless handsome Calormene sultan's son; listen to his rustling silks, and smell his perfume, of heady spices, and attar of roses.  
  
I'm losing my mind, she thought frantically. I have never met anybody like that it my life- save that Indian lady and her husband who lived next to me in my old flat in Tottenham and who treated me occasionally to curry and vindaloo- and they were nothing like this Rabadash person! I must have gotten the idea for him out of my old copy of the Arabian Nights. She did, after all, have such an active imagination when she was a girl.  
  
But still- it seemed so real-  
  
"Oh, but you do. Don't deny it," the old man crowed. "I see the truth in your eyes."  
  
Susan's lips thinned. "How long did you stay in- in- this place you call Narnia?"  
  
"Not long. Until the tournament ended. But it felt like years. I wanted to stay there, for the rest of my life. But He-"  
  
"He?"  
  
"Yes, you know. The Lion. He," said the old man, with a transcendent air. "Gold as the sun, with eyes like fire- he came up to me, and told me I must leave. 'Return to your own world, Son of Adam,' he said to me, in a voice like a bell, deep and pure. "This place is not for you.' And I begged him. I begged to him to stay. I told him I could not bear to go back to that place, with the barred windows, and shock treatments, and the nurse; and although the Lion was obdurate, in not allowing me to stay, he took pity on me, and said I could see Narnia in my dreams. And with that I had to be content.  
  
"And so I returned to the hospital, and it was as bad as I feared. But-" and he chuckled again- "I had my dreams! Yes! And I saw you, my Queen, and I knew- I knew- that I could come back to it all again! That this country of flowers and ever shining summer- that is my real place, not this dull concrete hell populated by human rats and dogs! You are my sign, my icon. And we," he hissed, his eyes glittering like a zealot's, "shall return to Narnia... together."  
  
"You're mad," choked Susan. "Perfectly mad!"  
  
"No, no," he cackled. "That is where you are wrong, my Queen. I am perfect, perfect, perfectly sane! For you miss your brothers and sisters, do you not?"  
  
Despite herself, she gasped, and the old man's smile grew, if possible, even wider, until she thought his face would split in too, like an overripe melon.  
  
"Well, my Lady, I have seen them. I have seen them, reigning blissfully in the true Land... as pure and shining as angels... with none of this filth that you find here."  
  
"Filth?" she said faintly. "What do you mean by that?"  
  
"What do I mean by filth?" he spat. He whirled around, waving his arms wildly. "When we go aboveground- take a look around you! Smell- breathe- this Sodom, this Babylon that we live in! Look around at this place- this city- of pimps and whores, rapists and sodomites, beggars and thieves! This place- where thugs shoot children in the back- and hopped-up arsonists incinerate old women in their sleep- and girls spread their legs for their dope habits! I know the life you left behind. I know what you have become. You, you of all people, can be so much more. You who were once a queen, a goddess among men, golden, glorious..."  
  
The old man then gave her a hard, merciless stare. "Now... you are only another woman." He said 'woman' with such contempt that she, despite herself, started shrinking back into her seat. "Just another skirt, a frail, a cheap secretary," he sneered, "who slaves away, a cog in a company machine!"  
  
He paused again, significantly.  
  
"And there is only one way to restore you to your former glory."  
  
"What," she said, unsteadily. "By pushing me in front of a train?"  
  
He rolled his eyes upwards, and spread his hands apart, as if he were Billy Sunday himself. "Death is not an end, but a restoration."  
  
"Maybe," Susan cried, "but I'm not ready to die just yet!" She thought, frantically, of Alan, her friends, walking through Central Park, traveling down to Brighton Beach to get steaming hot knishes at Mrs. Stahl's, then greedily eat them while walking along the Boardwalk towards the roller coasters of Coney Island...  
  
"Aslan," she said, for the first time in years. She paused as the name left her lips- the mere act of saying it gave her a sudden conviction, a rush of courage. "Aslan wouldn't want me to die."  
  
"Aslan!" The old man's gentle, evangelistic air disappeared, and he hissed. "How do you know what he wants?" He stabbed at her with a gnarled finger. "You've become nothing but a faithless, gutless creature. Only by taking this final step can you possibly redeem yourself! And only with my help can you succeed!"  
  
Susan pulled herself out of the seat, and pulled herself up to her full height. Her eyes blazed, and her black hair, so carefully styled as she had left the apartment, was flying about her face in disheveled strands.  
  
"What," she snarled. "Do you think you're Aslan?"  
  
As she said this, the lights in the car flickered; once, twice; then the subway ground to a full, screeching stop. As the doors opened, Susan sprung out and bolted- like the White Stag, that she perhaps once hunted, in another life, when she was a Queen.  
  
*** 


	5. The Heart of the World

Still running, she pounded up the stairs of the subway, and threw herself, gasping, into the cold air. The weather had worsened, drastically, while she was underground. Icy rain now drove into her eyes, stinging her face, and for a moment she felt completely disoriented, until she realized, by the Memorial Arch looming off to her left, that she was right by Washington Square itself.

Unfortunately, she heard the pounding of footsteps fast behind her. 

"My Queen!" the old man rasped. "My Queen!" 

She whirled away, and sprang away down the sidewalk. But the old man- moving almost inhumanly fast- seized her arm, with an iron grip. 

"I only want the best for you!" he bawled into her ear.

"The best," she panted, "would be to let me go-"

She tried desperately to shake him off, but for someone that ancient, he was amazingly strong. "Don't resist! You will join your family now, and isn't that what you always wanted?" 

"I told you," she screamed. "In God's name, leave me in peace!"

"God!" He let out a dismal screech, like a crow alighting upon a corpse on the battlefield. "What would you know about God, you thing- you creature- you nothing? Yes- nothing- although you are less than nothing- someone who gave up the bountiful goodness of heaven- for the squalid existence of earth! What can one say of a person like that- except that they are fortunate to grasp what repentance they can? You should be fortunate that I have come for you at all- or else you would have drowned in your profane misery!"

And before she could gasp out another word, he grabbed her by the shoulders and flung her, like she was no more than a rag doll, in front of an oncoming yellow taxi. 

She collided with the concrete, the pavement scraping her face and knees, and all the breath was knocked out of her. She tried to roll out of the way, but when she looked up, all she saw was the blinding headlights bearing towards her- like a train in a tunnel, fast approaching-

Just in time, the driver slammed on his brakes, and the massive steel car came screeching to a halt, only a foot away from Susan's face. As she laid there, boneless and gasping like a fish just hauled out of the ocean, the door slammed, and the cab driver scrambled out and ran towards her. As he bent over her, she saw that he was an elderly black man, with a careworn face, salt and pepper hair, and a neat bow tie. 

Carefully draping his arms about her, he helped her up. "Thank God I stopped just in time! Miss- you're not hurt, are you?"

Susan was about to croak out some reply, when the old man, still on the sidewalk, started laughing. "I knew it!" he cried. "I knew it. No redemption- no redemption surely for the godless-"

The taxi driver turned abruptly. "You over there!" 

The old man froze, staring at the cab driver as if he had seen a ghost. 

"Horace- is that your name?"

The old man's entire countenance turned white as death. "Yes," he whispered. "Yes, that's right."

"Well now, Horace." The cab driver's voice was a rich, gravelly baritone, with a strong southern twang. She knew, for certain, she had never met him before, but he seemed somehow familiar, as if she had perhaps seen him in passing, somewhere, many years ago... 

"I think you should leave this young lady alone. In fact, I think you should leave. Right now." 

At that, the old man quivered strangely. His face, looking even more frail and parchment- like than before, even seemed to collapse upon itself. Without another word he turned around and walked away, vanishing into the rain, as if he never had existed. 

With that, Susan began to shake, uncontrollably. 

"He- he-" Her voice quaked like an old woman's. "He tried to-"

The cab driver patted her on the shoulder, with a large, calloused hand. 

"I know. But never mind about him. You'll never have to worry about him again." 

She wanted to ask him how he could possibly know that, but she suddenly felt far too tired and overwhelmed to ask. She merely felt reassured, by the presence of this stranger who somehow wasn't a stranger. 

"You'll be all right," he rumbled. "You are... where you are supposed to be."

Susan blinked and wiped her nose. "Am I?"

"You certainly are," said the cabbie, firmly and warmly, and she felt herself- usually all stiff, cold and constantly on the defensive- actually smiling at him. Quite a marvelous feeling, that. It was as if- somewhere, deep down, that frozen, miserable knot that had formed inside her, all those years ago, was somehow finally beginning to thaw.

"Just remember," he went on, "who to call on when you need help. Can you remember?"

And as he gazed at her, and she wondered if she could see a tawny glint somewhere, deep in his eyes- that was odder yet.

"Yes," she said slowly. For some reason, an image of her brothers and sister flitted through her mind. She could almost imagine them smiling down on her, at that very moment. "Yes, I.... remember."

"Good." He nodded, smiled again cryptically, and touched his cap. And the strangest of all- she thought she heard him say, as he walked back to his cab-

"Once a queen in Narnia-"

"Always a queen in Narnia," she murmured to herself, and in a perfect daze, wondered back to the sidewalk. The rain was letting up; although her hair was soaked and falling into her eyes. The neat waves of her perm were ruined, and she was sure her perfect red lipstick was smudged and her mascara was streaming down her face- but for once, she didn't care. She did not care in the slightest. 

"Susan! Susan, baby- oh God- are you all right?"

And the next thing she knew, she saw Alan, rushing towards her. He wasn't wearing a hat, his Mackintosh was open, and his coat and poorly knotted tie were flapping behind him, but to her, a knight in shining armor couldn't have been more welcome. At the sight of him, she nearly burst into tears. 

"Alan, darling, I'm so glad you're here!" She stumbled towards him, taking his wonderfully warm hands, with their ragged nails and ink-stained cuticles. "I can't begin to tell you what's happened. I've had the strangest, most surreal night..."

"Christ!" Alan stared at her, concern and horror written all over his face. "There's bruises on your face!" 

"Yes, I know. It's a long story..." She shook her head. 

Without another word, he wrapped his arms around her, and she pressed her face into his chest, into the depths of his old wool coat, that smelled of cheap cigarettes and spilled coffee. She could hear his heartbeat- and she thought-

_How marvelous it is- to be here, alive, and in my lover's arms. I wouldn't trade anything else, for all the world._

"I can take you home," he whispered. "We don't have to go out-"

"No," she said, smothering a hiccup. She looked up at him intently. "I do want to go out. I should love to go to the bistro. Didn't you say that there's this drummer performing tonight, who used to play with Charlie Parker?"

"Oh yeah! Roy Haynes! Man, like he's crazy." Bemused, Alan drew back from her. "I told you about him before."

"I know you did." She felt a bit ashamed of herself, only half paying attention, and so focused on her own troubles, when he talked about something he was clearly so passionate about. "But I would like to hear it again. Please."

He shrugged. "Like I said, Haynes is this bald cat that's nuttier than Krupa. He played with Bird and Thelonious and all those jazzers. Amazing when he gets really into the beat- he brings the whole house down!"

"It does sound... fun," she said, almost shyly.

Alan- bless him- looked somewhat incredulous. "You really want to hear him, Sue?" As he peered at her, he pushed his glasses back on his face. "I didn't think you really cared about the music."

"Well," she began slowly, "maybe I did, and I didn't know it."

"Really?" He cocked his head. "Here's a whole new side to you I didn't know about. Is there anything else you're hidin' from me?" 

"Maybe." She smiled at him. "And maybe I'll stop hiding so much soon."

"Really? Now _that_ sounds like lots of fun." Alan smiled back at her, roguishly. "I like stories." 

"Good, because I've got a thousand of them," said Susan, all of a sudden, feeling giddy. "But for now-" 

She paused, and gazed around at the trees, the sky, the brilliant streetlights, the speeding cars, the bulk of apartment buildings and townhouses, all brick and concrete and steel- all of them forming the most fascinating zig-zag on the horizon. And each building, behind their walls and windows, throbbed with life- men, women, children, laughing, crying, loving, dying, _living_. Like the blood pumping through her veins- she could feel the pulse of life in the ground, in the air, indeed, vibrating through her very body, as if she were at the center, the very heart of the world. It was the most astonishing feeling. And just think, she told herself, with awe and amazement- beyond Manhattan, spread a million places she had never seen. As of yet she had scarcely been into the outer boroughs- Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens- and there, and beyond that, there were as many things to do, and see, and experience, as stars in the universe. In this world, grief and laughter, beauty and horror, evil and goodness, intertwined, like a tapestry; a weaving of all the sufferings and joys of humanity; and for a moment she felt so overwhelmed, and joyful, that she could barely begin to count her blessings. She wanted to cry and laugh, and fling her arms into the air-

But Susan only turned to Alan, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkling. 

"For now," she breathed, "I just want to _go_." 

"Your wish is my command, Your Majesty," said Alan. He looked at her with astonishment and wonder, as he offered his arm. A big, delighted grin had taken over his face. "Let's beat it."

At that, she threw back her head and laughed- joyful, unrestrained, and finally, after all these years- free.

And she took his arm, and they _went_. 


End file.
